Globalization and Localization

Last updated Oct 17, 2003.

Let's clarify the terms globalization, localization, and
internationalization before digging into the topic of creating a global presence
while aware of regional needs. In this section, globalization is an
organization that expands its Web site to reach markets outside of its native
market. Although the British speak English and an American company's site
is in English, the United Kingdom doesn't count as going beyond borders
because it hasn't taken cultural and linguistic factors into play.

Localization is the adaptation of a Web site to a locale, which
includes cultural, technical, and linguistic modifications. An example of a
technical aspect is that people of the U.S. often abbreviate dates as MM/DD/YY,
which translates to 02/10/04. Many European countries do it as DD/MM/YY, which
is 10/02/04. Americans translate this date to be October 2, 2004 instead of
February 10, 2004.

Internationalization is building a Web site to enable it to support
multiple locales. Localization is the modification of a Web site for a specific
locale. Think of internationalization as a template that can be adapted for the
localized pages.

Have you been to a site that offers various language choices on its home
page? How does it display the information? Take a look at
http://www.ibm.com. What does it say?
"Select country/region." Last time I checked, China, France, Germany,
Italy, and Japan aren't using English as their primary language. The
countries are also listed in English. Although persons in the aforementioned
countries may recognize their country's name in English, they may not be
able to translate, "Select country/region."

Some sites use a flag instead of words, which breaks the language barrier,
but there's still a problem. If they display the flag from Mexico and no
other country in which Spanish is the primary language, what are the people of
Spain supposed to click on? They might both speak Spanish, but their cultural
differences are great. 20 countries consider Spanish their official
language.

When Chevy took its Nova car to the market in Mexico, it flopped. The maker
didn't take Mexico's first language into consideration.
"Nova" in Spanish literally translates to "Doesn't go"
in English. Who would want to buy a car that doesn't go? Another example is
Eskimo pies (vanilla ice cream with chocolate shell). It means Eskimo feet
because pies is feet in Spanish. Humor aside, it's not funny when a
business pours a lot of money to cross borders without doing its research and
then flopping.

Another example without using language is color. EuroDisney made a booboo
when it created a multimillion dollar advertising campaign with tons of purple.
For the Catholics of Western Europe, purple signifies the crucifixion, and
it's a color of mourning rather than a happy place as Disney sites are
known to be. The result? EuroDisney flopped.

The Internet has erased the distance between countries and has opened
opportunities for businesses and organizations to expand across borders. It
takes more than translating a Web site into other languages to succeed in other
markets. It's costly to take the extra step in understanding cultural
differences, but the direction the Internet is going will force companies to
take that step.